


Give Me One Night to Push Away Your Worries

by ZielonookiKsiezniczka



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Intimacy, Jedi are allowed to have sex, Not Beta Read, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Obitine mention, Ok lots of talk first, One Shot, Sex not romance, Talk first then sex, from another wip, light smut with feelings, old friends reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24021562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZielonookiKsiezniczka/pseuds/ZielonookiKsiezniczka
Summary: Everyone, even Obi-Wan Kenobi, is entitled to a little self-indulgence after everything that's just happened in the galaxy.Set at the end of Revenge of the Sith before the twins are separated and Obi-Wan goes to Tatooine.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Original Character(s), Obi-Wan Kenobi/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 17





	Give Me One Night to Push Away Your Worries

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Periphery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274713) by [ZielonookiKsiezniczka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZielonookiKsiezniczka/pseuds/ZielonookiKsiezniczka). 



> My first attempt at writing smut, but it came out more as story mixed with intimacy mixed with moderately descriptive sex. 
> 
> This is an expansion of sorts on a flashback from Chapter 1 of my longer character-centered WIP that I've used as a sort of writing exercise. To what success, I don't know. You don't need to know the story of the work it was drawn from to read this as I ended up included background where I felt it was relevant.
> 
> Edit: I feel like I should say that my OC is not a replacement/stand in for the canon character Sheltay Retrac. Rhyssa/Pa'lai is meant to never be seen. She's my addition to the story that stays out of the way and does her job.
> 
> I welcome any and all constructive feedback.

From her quarters, she can feel the struggle between life and death that rages in the station’s medical wing. She reaches out just enough to feel the two new lifeforms, bright spots in an ever-increasing darkness. Sorrow washes over her – her own and that of the beings present at the birth of the twins – as the mother, a woman she had grown to think of as a friend, ceases her struggle to cling to the barest threads of light and life.

Rhyssa Veren, senior aide to Senator Bail Organa who, years before, had been a Jedi padawan named Pa’lai Jade, takes a long moment to grieve the loss of the outspoken senator from Naboo. Her voice will be sorely missed in the years, the difficulties, to come.

Dark thoughts threaten the edges of Rhyssa’s mind: _Ho_ _w can you hope to fight back against an enemy who has been so very thorough? What is left of hope in a galaxy consumed by the darkness of the Sith?_ But there is always hope, she tells herself, remembering the moment she first felt the blinding-light goodness that was the boy who had only recently entered the world. The dark thoughts skitter away again, no match for what she truly believes will come.

Returning fully to her present, she finds her hand still gripping the cup she’d pulled from the top of the small stack that rested near the tins of tea leaves. An ever so slight glimpse of intention has her reaching for another before she chooses a leaf that is strong in flavor but will calm the nerves of the drinker. By the time the tea is steeped and she’s filled her own cup, she can feel his presence stalking the hallway outside her quarters. She takes a sip and waits.

Obi-Wan Kenobi hesitates, one hand reaching out to press the chime before he reconsiders, pulling it back to rub his thumb and fingers outward from the center of his brow, down along the outside of his cheekbones and along his jaw. Here he pauses, releasing a sigh of warm air into the palm of the hand covering his mouth. With a final stroke of his beard, he brings his hand to the chime once more. But before he can press it, the air in front of him shifts with the soft swish of the door sliding out of sight.

Unmistakable green eyes, the color of precious gemstones, meet his and she leans into the corridor, taking a quick look in either direction.

“Master Kenobi,” she says quietly.

It pains him to hear her call him, once again, by his title. Well, at least she hadn’t called him “General.” Small mercies, he supposes.

“To what do I owe this unexpected visit,” Pa’lai asks, retreating fully back through the doorway to her quarters.

For all that he _knows_ she goes by a different name now, that she likely has for years, he can’t help but think of her as she was at the Jedi Temple. She will always be Pa’lai to him.

He begins to explain that he had intended to use the chime, he’d just needed another moment to collect his thoughts, but he stops short. Releasing a sigh, Obi-Wan forces himself to relax. He and Pa’lai had been friends for many years, after all. “I was hoping we could talk,” he says, trying to project a sense of calm. Assuredness.

Pa’lai acquiesces, stepping to the side to allow him entry to her quarters.

Obi-Wan looks around as he enters the room. It’s small but functional. Clearly designed to house the workers for whatever the main purpose this outpost had served in the asteroid field. For while the senator’s ship would have living quarters with likely more personal effects, not to mention actual beds, this room boasted two large bunks set into one of the walls and an industrial style table that appeared bolted to the floor. Some level of personalization on Pa’lai’s part added warmth to the impersonal space, including an area she’d set up for meditation. A pleasantly spicy aroma fills the small room along with a lingering undercurrent of floral notes, he assumes, from a previous pot of tea.

“We were friends, Pa’lai? All those years ago? Good friends, I always thought.” He’s not sure why he’d gone with these questions. Now that he’d said them aloud, he feels he should have said something else. 

“Of course, Ma-”

 _Master Kenobi_ , she was going to say. _Again_ , he thinks, blurting out a plea for her to call him Obi-Wan. She’d once used the title teasingly, back when he’d first taken Anakin as his padawan. He’d only just been knighted and the sorrow he felt over the loss of his own master still weighed heavily on him. She’d done it then with a wry smile, attempting to veil the pride she felt at all he had accomplished. But now he longed to hear his old friend address him as she’d always had. He wanted to be just Obi-Wan right now, not the _Master_ Kenobi who had failed so many.

“Very well, Obi-Wan.”

Some of the tension drains from the room. Pa’lai offers him a warm smile as she hands him a cup of tea. He relaxes a fraction more as he takes a sip, the warm, spiced blend seeming to work its way through his body to his fingertips and toes.

Looking at her, he tries to see the young woman he knew in the one that stands before him. It's actually quite easy, he realizes, except… “Your hair,” he forces out. “It’s...I almost didn’t recognize you with it so dark.” He doesn’t add that he thinks it looks well on her, even if it's not the light auburn he remembers. She must sense he’d left something unsaid as she plays off a soft blush with an eye roll. Slender fingers stroke the thick braid of chocolate brown hair that hangs over her right shoulder. “But your eyes will always give you away,” he adds, unable to pull his gaze away from the deep emerald framed with long, dark lashes. He sees the flash of humor in them that accompanies the small laugh that escapes her lips.

A flush of heat crawls up the back of Obi-Wan’s neck as her eyes meet his briefly before moving to take in his face, his hair, back down to his neck and the collar of his tunics. He forces himself to stand strong under her scrutiny, figuring he must look an absolute mess if the scorched areas of his tunics are anything to go by.

“You look very much the same as when I saw you a few months into the war, though—” _older,_ she thinks.

His own mind fills her unfinished sentence with thoughts similar to hers: _exhausted, much too old, broken_.

The overwhelming feeling of devastation that has been chasing him for days threatens to cut the fragile ties between the two old friends as they’re only just being rebuilt. Pa’lai feels it as well so she forces a light playfulness back into the conversation. “I am glad to see you cut your hair.”

Obi-Wan takes a long drink from the cup in his hands, mostly to keep himself from rolling his own eyes and dignifying her comment with any sort of a response. That’s when it clicks. Christophsis. Of course she would have been trapped on Christophsis with Senator Organa once the Separatists had blockaded the planet. He tries to recollect who he saw in Organa's company once they were finally able to break the blockade and land at the command center. He remembers seeing the captain of Organa’s ship and a young dark-haired woman he’d assumed was an assistant or an aide. A flicker of images come to his mind – a shadow, barely a presence, entirely inconspicuous and unimportant, passing near to him as he descended the ramp of his own ship, on his way to greet the senator. What he sees next comes from her memories. Turning back before entering the ship to see a man in Jedi tunics and partial armor; a man so changed from what she remembers from her time with the Order.

“How did I not see it was you,” he asks quietly as the glimpse at her memory fades from his mind.

“In all fairness, to you I was already dead.”

She offers him an opportunity to respond, but what can he really say. He can’t ask her why she didn’t tell him it had all been faked. He understood better than most that at times, secrecy is a necessity, no matter how much it hurts to keep that secret from those you care for. 

He can’t help the slight upward tug at the corners of his mouth as Pa’lai again tries to infuse a bit of humor into her story, reminding him that she did, in fact, hide from him. Though he’d also be lying to himself if he said her beautifully shy smile had nothing to do with it.

A quiet stillness settles between them, this time not haunted by the darkness that has befallen the galaxy. Obi-Wan finds himself running the pads of his first two fingers over the rim of the cup in his hands. “I mourned your death, you know."

What is there that she can say to that which won’t sound trite or simply too little too late?

“I even offered to take your lightsaber to your family, but Master Yoda told me that had already been done.” He says this partly because he is curious, not because he doubts Master Yoda’s words to him all those years ago. By the way Pa’lai closes her eyes and the calm that settles over her features, he knows the lightsaber, or at the very least, the kyber crystal, is back in her possession. _As it should be_ , he thinks. She provides confirmation to his thoughts, telling him that Master Yoda brought it to her when she began working for Senator Organa.

Obi-Wan’s next thoughts are more difficult to admit aloud, his voice coming out as a whisper as he tells her that he wished she’d told him that she had decided to leave the Jedi Order, that for years he felt he was to blame for her decision. He doesn’t tell her that there is a part of him that still places the blame at his own feet. Even now, he can’t look at her as he waits for her reply. Feeling her move away from him, he thinks that perhaps a part of her holds him responsible too.

“I couldn’t tell you because you were the only one who could have convinced me to stay,” she says, finally breaking the silence.

He raises his gaze in her direction, the implications of her statement working their way through his tangled thoughts. Would he have tried to talk her out of it? He was still a fairly young and inexperienced Jedi Knight when she left. It would be a couple of years more before he was faced with his own padawan’s decision over whether or not to remain with the Jedi Order.

Pa’lai takes his consternation perhaps for confusion, so she chooses to lay it all out before him. “I’ve always cared for you, Obi-Wan. As a brother, as a friend, and…”

“And as something more,” he finishes for her, his eyes fixed firmly on the gentle vulnerability written across her face.

She shakes her head but he knows it is not a denial.

“I understood even then that you would never feel the same way. Not towards me. I accepted that. It _never_ lessened the regard I had for our friendship.”

He apologizes, like he’d wanted to do for so long. Unable to look at her, he apologizes as he should have done so many years before. As he’d wanted to apologize to her family upon being informed of the ship crash that had supposedly claimed her life not long after leaving the Order. From the moment they’d met, she’d looked up to him as a brother. After all, as Master Yoda had told him, she’d chosen to leave behind an older brother who was barely a year younger than him. She’d been having trouble adjusting to life at the Jedi Temple and perhaps having someone that reminded her of that brother would help her acclimate. Obi-Wan couldn’t pinpoint exactly when their relationship had become more like true friendship, but they’d both seemed to realize it had evolved. It had evolved again, but that time, _he_ was truly the one at fault and he realizes he’ll never be able to fully forgive himself for it.

As was always her way, she dismisses his apology. “We were children, Obi-Wan.”

 _If only that were true_ , he thinks. This time, he won’t let her take this on herself. “You may have been, but I was old enough to know what I was doing.” In fact, she’d truly been barely more than a child the first time he’d kissed her. It hadn’t been intentional, but that doesn’t lessen the guilt he feels. _Rightly so,_ he thinks. Pa’lai had been a padawan for just over two years. At fifteen standard years, she was navigating her own adolescence, no longer a child, but not yet an adult. Whereas he – at twenty – was, despite still reeling from the confusing and turbulent emotions of his year-long mission with his master protecting the young woman who would become the Duchess of Mandalore.

Obi-Wan had found Satine attractive from the start, particularly the fire that burned in her bright blue eyes. She'd had a surety about herself, a conviction, that, at the time, he couldn’t recall ever having felt in himself. Something had changed inside him during that mission, but it left a trail of confusion in its wake.

He hadn’t wanted his relationship with Pa’lai to change, yet he’d been closed off from his friend since returning to Coruscant with Qui-Gon. And Pa’lai – always the gifted empath – managed to give it a voice before he’d had a chance to do so himself. “I heard you’d considered not coming back,” she’d said to him, voice full of feigned nonchalance as she held a defensive stance that mostly mirrored his own, her green-bladed lightsaber ignited in front of her. It wasn’t the same green as her eyes, he knew. He’d reached over to adjust the angle of her elbow and everything slowed. He could trace the lines of sweat down the back of her long neck from her dark red hair where it was pulled into an increasingly unravelling bun. He saw the slight tremble of her shoulder muscles from holding position after position as they worked repeatedly through lightsaber forms. And then her head snapped around to meet his gaze as if she’d felt something too.

But she was fifteen, and that should have been enough to stop him. Pa’lai had been a close friend for years and his desire to make some sense of what he’d felt for Satine had gotten the better of him. He’d selfishly taken advantage of his young friend, kissing her that night, and then carrying on with her for another two and a half years whenever they were both in-Temple.

And when they were eventually caught out and reprimanded – one or both of their masters had decided it had gone on long enough – Pa’lai, at just shy of eighteen, had responded with more wisdom than he could hope to for years. Obi-Wan had heard she’d argued philosophically with the council and, while accepting their judgment in the end, tacitly held onto her own opinions, earning herself an unofficial mentorship with Master Yoda that had apparently lasted through the years.

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, hadn’t argued at all. Instead, he'd internalized the observations of the council, accepting they were right, and steadfastly focused himself on training to become a model Jedi.

The guilt had begun to trickle back in the moment he realized who was standing before him when he’d first come aboard Senator Organa’s ship after his troops had turned on him. And now, she’d attempted to manufacture an excuse for him. But he knows better.

Pa’lai tries another tactic. Was she younger? Yes. But unlike him, she’d already known – she’d remembered – what it was to love someone, even if it had been familial and not romantic. And she had known he hadn’t. Not really. She’d known before he had been able to admit it that he had truly loved Satine. Pa’lai had meant it that night in the dojo when she’d told him he never had to apologize to her for anything. Because she knew that in this, he may as well have still been a child. Of course, she spares him the embarrassment of stating this aloud, even if it is just the two of them in her quarters.

She goes on to tell him that while her informed arguments with the council and sticking to her convictions may have endeared her to Master Yoda, they did nothing for her future with the Order. Pa’lai felt she’d found a place of balance, an acceptance that she could, and would, show love and compassion to those around her, all the while knowing with her whole heart that she could let them go when the time called for it. Obi-Wan believed her, and yet it saddened him. If only she’d been around to help him guide his padawan. But that line of thinking was unfair to the woman before him. Pa’lai had come to these realizations mostly on her own. Anakin’s failure to see what she saw had been Anakin’s alone, though Obi-Wan would always claim a portion of that blame in his heart.

And so Pa’lai had left just before she was to take her trials, Master Yoda coordinating her departure from Coruscant with Senator Organa and informing only her master.

“And because you left, you’re still—” Obi-Wan begins, sorrow for all those lost warring with selfish relief that at least Pa’lai is still here. Someone he’d never expected to see again. “You’re still alive.”

He hears her move quietly; gracefully. The next thing he knows, she’s taking the cup from his hands and setting it on the table. Her fingers are warm as he feels them come to rest on either side of his face. “I am so sorry, Obi-Wan,” she says with so much compassion he can’t help but let go a little, sinking into the warmth she’s radiating.

Obi-Wan focuses his light blue eyes back into the depth of her emerald eyes and asks if she knew. Did she see this? For just as nearly all Jedi had some natural empathic ability while Pa’lai’s strength in that area had been remarkable, so it was that many Jedi experienced the occasional vision while Pa’lai had been plagued by nightmares throughout most of her childhood. And only moments earlier, she had cited recurring visions as why she’d approached Senator Organa after being home on Alderaan for such a short time.

Her knee-jerk response is an emphatic “no,” but she amends this slightly as she thinks about it. Somehow she’d known they were hurtling headlong towards something big. She’d done what she could to ensure the Senator was ready for anything that might arise. Good or bad. Though she knew it would be bad. But she would never in her life have imagined anything on this scale. This absolute.

Tears pool in her eyes and she fights to keep them from spilling over her lower lids and down her flushed cheeks. “You’ve lost everything,” she says, green eyes boring into his soul while baring the rest of her thoughts to him. _Your master, the woman you loved, your friends, your family,_ her thoughts echo inside Obi-Wan’s mind. He hears her voice again, but not inside his head. “If there is anything at all I can do…”

It’s then that Obi-Wan realizes what’s happening. What she’s doing. Pa’lai is _feeling_ his losses for him, pulling out as much of the pain as she can to spare him. He doesn’t think she’s even aware she’s doing it. When they were young, she’d told him about the times on Alderaan, before she came to the Jedi Temple, when she’d climb into her brother’s bed while he’d been crying after a difficult day at school and she’d end up crying softly _for_ him as he fell asleep. This is simply who she is. And while Obi-Wan is grateful for it, these are not her burdens to bear.

He brings his hands up to her face to wipe away the tears that have slipped down her cheeks before leaning in to place his lips gently on hers. He lingers there for a moment, savoring the softness of her skin and giving her the opportunity to pull away, to stop this before it starts. With an exhale and inhale from her nose that tickles the hairs on his face, he knows he’s interrupted her instinctual siphoning of his emotions. So he deepens the kiss and he feels the tension in her body melt. Her lips part just enough to spur him on, sliding his tongue deftly in to explore her mouth.

Obi-Wan, never slowing his ministrations, removes the lightsaber from his belt, places it on the table with the tea cups and wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her body flush with his.

As her fingers find their way into his hair, she’s grateful that they’re at least somewhat near the same height. Alderaanian men are typically taller and though she wouldn’t consider herself short, Pa’lai is content to keep her mouth tangled up with Obi-Wan’s without having to stand on her toes. She nips at his lower lip, enjoying the scratch of his beard against her chin as she reaches for the clasp on his belt. He catches it before it can clatter to the ground and sets it near his lightsaber on the table. Pa’lai smiles briefly against his lips and continues on to his obi and tabbards.

Before she can get much further however, Obi-Wan captures her hands and interlaces his fingers with hers. He wraps both arms around her, effectively trapping her hands behind her back. Taking small steps back towards the bunks, she lets out a quiet grumble as Obi-Wan releases her mouth, following with a louder groan of satisfaction as he places nibbling kisses across her jawline and down her neck, the tickle of his facial hair only adding to the pleasure of it all.

Adjusting the grip on her hands to free up one of his while keeping both of hers temporarily out of play, he gently walks her back the couple of remaining steps so her back meets the wall that houses the stacked bunks. Obi-Wan uses his free hand to untie the sash at her waist that holds her robe closed. The soft, warm fabric falls open to reveal a much lighter and silkier sleeping gown, not see-through this close up and in the dimmed lighting, but he can imagine. It was the night cycle, after all, when he’d decided he could no longer put off seeking her out to talk.

He returns his attentions to her neck, pushing the robe and gown off her lightly freckled left shoulder as she rolls her head to her right to allow him better access. Finally releasing her hands, Obi-Wan reluctantly takes a step back to quickly remove his boots, tabbards, and the layers of tunics. Pa’lai’s soft robe is already puddled at her feet, her sleeping gown sitting askance, exposing the delicate skin of her left shoulder, nearly down to her breast.

She waits and watches as he undresses down to his standard Jedi leggings; loose enough to not be restricting of movement but tight enough to not get caught up on anything. Or, in their current situation, loose enough to not restrict blood flow but tight enough to make Pa’lai chew her bottom lip at the very distinct outline of his erection. Reaching out impatiently, she grabs his waistband and pulls him in close, careful of the bruising she’d seen blossomed over several areas of his tightly muscled torso.

The strength of his body presses her back against the wall again and Pa’lai whimpers as she feels the absolute stiffness of his erection against her hip, impatient to have him inside of her. Callused fingers brush her thighs as he gathers the fabric of her sleeping gown, working to get his hands under it.

Obi-Wan explores her naked flesh quickly, hands moving from her hips around to the curve of her backside, up to the base of her spine where he pulls her in tight and grinds his cock against her slowly. The soft fingers tracing lines on his back contract and neatly manicured nails befitting a senator’s aide briefly dig into his skin.

Bringing one hand back to her hip bone, he begins to move in towards her center and down, finding her curls already soft and slick with her arousal. He continues moving down, feeling her chest rise against his as her breath hitches in anticipation. After only a few strokes on the outside of her slick folds, he slides one long finger inside the warmth of her sex, relishing the moan she’d been waiting to release.

He explores for only a moment before he removes his finger, returns his grip to her hips and rests his forehead against hers. He can feel the heat radiating off her as he’s sure she can feel his. Pulling back slightly to look comfortably into her emerald eyes, Obi-Wan asks a silent question. This is the furthest they’ve gone. Not ever, of course, just with each other.

Pa’lai gives him a quick nod and he’s back on her in a second, hungry mouth claiming her lips and her tongue in a burst of passion. Still holding her tight against him, he pulls her away from the wall. A quick readjustment of his arms and he’s scooping her up to toss her mostly gently on the lower bunk, wasting no time climbing in after her.

The overall height of the bunk isn’t enough to allow either to sit up fully, but that doesn’t bother either of them. With Pa’lai on her back, head nestled against her pillow, Obi-Wan settles himself between her legs. Supporting his weight on one forearm, he kisses her hotly again, his tongue luxuriating in the taste of her, as he pushes the lower hem of her sleeping gown up over a bent knee, past her strong thigh, to rest above the protrusion of her hip bone.

Pa’lai pushes back against the press of his body just enough to loosen the waistband of his leggings. He lifts his hips, reluctantly breaking contact with the warmth between her legs, and uses his free hand to help her push his leggings down enough to free his throbbing cock.

Deep green meets the lightest blue as she reaches between their bodies to run delicate fingers along his length. A moan escapes his lips. Her eyelashes flutter as she takes him gently in hand, using the wetness of her own arousal to lubricate the head of his cock, teasing them both lightly in the process.

Without a word from her, Obi-Wan, solely tuned in on her body, feels the slight tip of her pelvis and slowly guides himself inside of her. He doesn’t want to overwhelm her, though he’s now certain she’s done this before, so he takes his time, burying himself deeper and deeper, but never to his full length, with each slow thrust. She opens herself to him in the Force. A contented bliss accompanies the hot breaths at the junction of his neck and shoulder and the steady contracting and expanding of the muscles in her abdomen, her back, her buttocks, her legs. As her hands move across his body, he knows what his scars and bruises feel like under the tender touch of another. There comes a recurring sense of pain mixed with pleasure and he realizes he’s thrusting fully into her now, though with the same gentle care he’d started with.

He begins to ease up, but Pa’lai digs in her nails, wraps an ankle around his back, drags her lips across his ear and whispers, “don’t.” She puts a hand on his jaw, turning his head slightly to kiss him. The bites to his lower lip, the insistence of her tongue, and the fingers threading through and pulling at his hair inspire him to do as she says, picking up the pace and lessening the gentleness of his thrusts until he feels her moan throatily into his mouth.

Leaving one leg tangled with his, she bends the other up so her knee is pointing nearly at the upper corner of the bunk behind her head, heel propped on the curve of his lower back, moving the angle of her hips and allowing him to stimulate different places deep inside of her with each thrust. Without hesitation, he forces his hand to the sensitive flesh at the back of her knee, holding it in place and tickling the skin with the pad of his thumb, causing her to shudder slightly as he drives his cock into her again.

As the intensity builds, she has more and more trouble separating her own sensations from his. It’s been so long since she’s had sex with another Force sensitive being, she considers reigning in her focused projection and disentangling her mind from Obi-Wan’s. She’s pulled back from him only a little when he moves to prop the underside of her bent knee on a beautifully flexed bicep. A cry escapes her throat, something between a surprised gasp and a groan of pleasure, as he pushes her leg forwards more while he hammers into her again, causing more stretch in the muscles in the back of her leg. It's his turn to lean into her, voice deep and gravelly as he whispers "don't" into her ear. That alone nearly tips her over the edge.

Several more powerful thrusts and her climax rolls over her, hot and heavy and all the more intense for the relentless pressure he exerts on various parts of her body – her bent leg now pinned by his shoulder as his fingers tightly grip the flesh of her backside, his hips still beating out a punishing rhythm against her pelvis, his forehead resting against hers. She finally manages to throw her head back and he dodges to avoid any inadvertent broken noses.

As he continues his steady drive in and out of her as the muscles continue to contract and spasm around his cock, he reaches deeper into her shared presence, revelling in what are just the outermost ripples of waves of orgasm pulsing through her, urging her to ride it ever further. _How did I not know it could be this intense_ , he thinks fleetingly before allowing the lingering sensations of her climax to push him over the edge. His hips stutter against her dripping sex as he pours himself into her.

Slowly, very slowly, his breathing returns to an almost normal rhythm. Obi-Wan places a gentle kiss to the inside of the knee he’s still holding up. Another to the soft skin of her thigh as he somewhat reluctantly pulls out of her. He releases her leg, rubbing soothingly at what he thinks must be exhausted thigh muscles as he moves up her body. Her chest is still heaving as he kisses her shoulder, her neck, and finally, he allows his lips to rest for a long moment on her forehead. He breathes in the scent of her hair mixed with sweat and post-coital bliss.

Pa’lai scratches her fingers through his beard at his jawline, inviting him in for a slow, languid kiss. His eyes remain closed several moments after this kiss has ended and opening them again appears to be a struggle.

“You need to sleep, Obi-Wan,” Pa’lai says quietly, moving herself from underneath him while attempting to arrange him comfortably on his side.

“There is still so much to be done,” Obi-Wan answers groggily.

“There will always be much to do. But you need rest if you are to do it well.”

He chuckles quietly and heaves out a sigh, making no move to get up.

She hears a soft, steady snoring that indicates he’s actually listened to her and gone to sleep. Looking him over, the lines on his face have smoothed. He looks so much younger without the war and the endless stream of sorrows he’s collected throughout the years weighing on him. She pulls a blanket up over them both and drifts off to sleep.

Pa’lai doesn’t know how long she was out before the nightmare jolts her awake. She checks to see if she’s woken the man next to her, but Obi-Wan is still there, sleeping soundly on his back next to her. This dream was different. One she'd never had before. A little girl with red hair crying out for her mother – for her – as the Emperor watches over them both.


End file.
